Christ’s  Program 

OF  M  I  S  SfjDI  O  N  S 

IXW.II9IJ  UiSKiMEE 
f-or:Si  /iraerican  Section 
a*  LIBRARY 

William  Ashmore,  D.D. 


AMERICAN  BAPTIST  MISSIONARY 
UNION,  BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS 


Christ’s  Program  of  Missions 


OUR  passages  of  Scripture  set 
forth  explicitly  Christ’s  purpose 
and  method  in  the  propagation 
of  the  gospel  throughout  the 
world  :  “  Thus  it  is  written, 

and  thus  it  behooved  Christ  to  suffer,  and 
to  rise  from  the  dead  the  third  day,  and  that 


repentance  and  remission  cf  sins  should  be 
preached  in  his  name  among  all  nations, 
beginning  at  Jerusalem.  .  .  .  Go  ye 
therefore  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  teaching 
them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have 
commanded  you.  .  .  .  Go  ye  into  all  the 
world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  crea¬ 
ture.”  .  .  .  “Ye  shall  receive  power,  after 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you  :  and 
ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me  both  in  Jeru¬ 
salem  and  in  all  Judea,  and  in  Samaria,  and 
unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth. 


Two  Great  missionary  Campaigns 

The  plan  thus  outlined  by  the  Master 
was  carried  out  to  the  letter  by  the  disciples. 
The  book  of  Acts  is  a  commentary  on  the 
eighth  verse  of  the  first  chapter.  It  is  taken 
up  with  an  account  of  two  great  missionary 
campaigns  :  a  Jewish  campaign,  and  a  Gen¬ 
tile  campaign,  which  together  covered  the 
entire  field  of  world  operations.  In  the  first 
campaign  Peter,  James  and  John  were  the 
leaders.  They  began  in  Jerusalem  as  they 
had  been  instructed  to  do.  They  were  told 
to  begin  at  Jerusalem,  and  they  were  to  go 
forth  from  Jerusalem.  Some  of  them  would 


have  continued  there,  expecting  to  fight  it 
out  with  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  for 
mastery  in  the  old  household.  That,  how¬ 
ever,  was  not  the  purpose  of  God.  A 
Jerusalem  persecution  broke  out,  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  which  the  disciples  were  scattered 
abroad,  and  went  everywhere  preaching  the 
Word,  and  so  all  Judea  was  speedily  trav¬ 
ersed.  Then  Philip  went  down  to  Samaria 
and  preached  Christ  unto  them.  Thus  was 
fulfilled  the  first  part  of  the  witnessing  enjoined 
by  Christ. 

Then  the  Gentile  campaign  began,  which 
was  to  continue  the  work  to  the  uttermost 
part  of  the  earth.  In  this  campaign  Barna¬ 
bas,  Paul  and  Silas  were  the  leaders.  The 
hdoly  Spirit  said  to  the  Gentile  church  at 
Antioch :  “  Separate  me  Barnabas  and 

Saul,  for  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called 
them.”  These  apostles  and  their  associates 
and  successors  went  from  town  to  town, 
from  city  to  city,  and  from  country  to  coun¬ 
try.  They  never  remained  long  in  any  one 
place,  but  were  continually  on  the  move. 
They  planted  and  then  passed  on.  In  this 
way  they  did  their  work  with  such  sufficiency 
that  Paul  could  afterwards  say :  “  From 

Jerusalem  and  round  about  unto  Illyricum  I 
have  fully  preached  the  gospel’  ;  and  he  could 
also  add  :  “  Having  no  more  place  in  these 

parts.”  He  then  contemplated  a  journey  to 
Spain,  the  end  of  the  then  civilized  world. 

Some  Principles  Stated 

It  is  in  these  compendious  passages  that 
several  things  are  to  be  noted : 

1 .  There  is  only  one  Great  Commission, 
and  that  is  the  one  to  evangelize  the  world 
as  a  whole.  The  commission  to  evangelize 


any  one  country  must  be  derived  from  the 
general  commission  to  evangelize  the  world 
at  large.  The  whole  is  greater  than  any  of 
its  parts.  The  world  is  greater  than  any 
country  in  the  world.  The  evangelization 
of  any  one  state  or  province  must  be  held 
subordinate  and  tributary  to  the  evangelization 
of  the  world  in  its  totality. 

2.  The  divine  plan  was  not  for  evangelists 
to  wait  until  everybody,  or  nearly  everybody, 
in  a  community  was  converted,  nor  yet  until 
everybody,  or  nearly  everybody,  should  have 
heard.  If  the  church  had  waited  in  Jerusalem 
until  Annas  and  Caiaphas  or  the  Pharisees 
generally  were  converted,  the  regions  beyond 
would  never  have  had  any  gospel. 

3.  The  divine  plan  makes  a  distinction 
between  evangelizing  and  Christianizing. 
Paul  did  not  say  that  great  region  in  which 
he  had  operated  had  been  fully  Christianized, 
for  that  would  not  have  been  true.  But  he 
did  say  that  it  had  been  fully  evangelized ; 
that  means  that  the  gospel  had  been  loudly 
and  widely  proclaimed  among  them ;  and  also 
that  witnessing  churches  had  been  planted  at 
important  points  to  continue  the  witnessing 
unto  Christ  after  the  apostles  had  moved  on 
to  other  places.  Evangelizing  was  the  work 
of  the  apostles ;  Christianizing  was  the  work 
of  the  pastors  and  teachers. 

4.  The  divine  plan  recognizes  a  right  of 
way  to  those  who  never  have  heard  once, 
over  those  who  have  heard  one  hundred  or 
five  hundred  times.  “  Let  us  go  forth,”  said 
Christ,  “into  other  towns  and  villages  also, 
for,  therefore,  am  I  come  forth.” 

5.  The  divine  plan  gives  precedence  to  a 
country  and  to  a  people  who  have  no  means 
of  grace  whatever  and  no  means  of  knowing 


about  a  Saviour,  —  no  Sabbaths,  no  churches, 
no  Bibles,  no  Christians,  over  a  country  or  a 
people,  which  is  full  to  repletion,  with  plenty 
of  churches,  plenty  of  Bibles  and  plenty  of 
Christian  literature.  There  are  great  cities 
in  China  of  over  1  00,000  people  in  which, 
if  a  dying  man  should  wish  to  inquire  about 
the  great  hereafter,  he  could  find  no  one 
who  could  tell  him.  In  America  there  is 
not  a  village  even  of  1  00  people  in  which, 
if  a  dying  man  would  wish  to  hear  about 
Christ,  he  could  not  find  a  score  of  his 
neighbors,  ministers  or  deacons,  who  would 
tell  him  all  about  it. 

6.  The  divine  plan  recognizes  a  distinc¬ 
tion  in  missions.  We  hear  it  said  sometimes 
that  “  missions  are  one.”  That  is  true,  but 
missions  also  are  many.  Missionary  purposes 
are  the  same,  but  missionary  conditions  and 
missionary  methods  greatly  vary. 

7.  More  than  that,  the  distinction  be¬ 
tween  home  missions  and  foreign  missions, 
which  some  say  ought  to  be  done  away 
with,  is  a  Bible  distinction  originating  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  recognized  and  acted  upon 
by  the  apostles.  “  When  they  saw  that  the 
gospel  of  the  uncircumcision  was  committed 
unto  me  as  the  gospel  of  the  circumcision  was 
unto  Peter;  (For  he  that  wrought  effec¬ 
tually  in  Peter  to  the  apostleship  of  the  cir¬ 
cumcision,  the  same  was  mighty  in  me  toward 
the  Gentiles :)  And  when  James,  Cephas  and 
John,  who  seemed  to  be  pillars,  perceived 
the  grace  that  was  given  unto  me,  they  gave 
to  me  and  Barnabas  the  right  hands  of  fel¬ 
lowship,  that  we  should  go  unto  the  heathen 
and  they  unto  the  circumcision.”  The  Holy 
Ghost  made  Peter  a  home  missionary  and 
Paul  a  foreign  missionary. 


8.  The  divine  plan  does  not  favor  any¬ 
thing  like  a  merger  between  the  foreign 
missions  and  home  missions.  When  the 
Holy  Spirit  would  start  a  foreign  mission  he 
did  not  organize  it  at  Jerusalem,  the  old  Jew¬ 
ish  homestead,  but  at  Antioch,  quite  a  distance 
away,  and  a  Gentile  city.  Paul,  as  the  apostle 
of  the  Gentiles,  refused  to  be  “coordinate” 
with  the  mission  to  the  Jews.  He  gave  place 
to  them  by  subjection  not  for  an  hour.  They 
were  cooperative,  but  not  coordinate. 

9.  The  divine  plan  does  not  start  any 
discussion  as  to  the  comparative  value  of 
souls,  or  anything  to  favor  the  sentiment 
sometimes  heard  that  an  American  soul  is  a 
much  more  valuable  asset  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  than  a  Fiji  soul.  It  is  not  what  we  can 
do  with  converts,  but  what  God  can  do  with 
them. 

1  0.  The  divine  plan  does  not  recognize 
that  any  one  country  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
is  necessary  to  help  God  out  in  his  plans  for 
the  redemption  of  mankind.  The  early 
Christian  Jews  seemed  to  think  they  were, 
but  they  found  they  were  not.  God  is  not 
dependent  upon  America  nor  upon  England. 
If  they  are  faithful,  then  well ;  if  unfaithful, 
God  will  take  away  their  bishopric  and  give 
it  to  another.  God  who  out  of  stones  could 
raise  up  children  unto  Abraham  can  raise  up 
witnesses  unto  Christ  out  of  the  Chinese,  the 
Japanese  and  the  Fijians. 


LITERATURE  DEPARTMENT 
AMERICAN  BAPTIST  MISSIONARY  UNION 
BOSTON.  MASS. 


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